This text is part of the special Pleasures notebook
Located in the heart of the Laurentians, the company Akène, forest culture offers practical solutions to green our cities, our backyards and our balconies in order to counter the loss of biodiversity.
“Nothing in my career suggested that I would one day launch into seed production,” says Philippe Denis, founder of Akène. He worked for 20 years in marketing communications before briefly devoting himself to brewing craft beers. Then, in the fall of 2020, he acquired a woodlot in the heart of the Laurentian forest with the idea of making seeds of wild and native plants available, some of which are currently threatened with extinction.
“At the start of the pandemic, I found myself taking care of the children and doing school at home. It was a period of forced reflection which gave me the taste to invest in something concrete for the next generation,” he recalls.
The native of Saint-Ubalde, in the MRC of Portneuf, says that he began to imagine a project that should allow him to reconcile family life and ecological convictions.
“Urban sprawl, forest land management, industrial agriculture, all of this has meant that at the global level, we have lost nearly 70% of biodiversity since the 1970s. And the pace is accelerating “, he said.
Keystones of wildlife biodiversity
While Philippe Denis spends most of his time producing and collecting seeds, part of his work involves raising awareness and educating the public about the crucial role that wild and native plants play in our ecosystems.
“Without native plants, everything collapses,” explains the man who was strongly influenced by the writings of Douglas Tallamy, a renowned entomologist in the United States. Insects tend to feed on a very narrow spectrum of plants, sometimes only one species. And 90% of those who are phytophagous [qui mangent des végétaux] depend on plants with which they have co-evolved for tens or even hundreds of thousands of years,” he says.
This is particularly the case for the monarch butterfly which, to lay eggs, needs milkweed, a plant long considered a weed by the agricultural industry. “It’s the only species that its caterpillar can eat. No milkweed, no monarchs,” he sums up, alluding to the decline of the lepidoptera recently classified as “endangered” in Canada.
Another example is Phragmites, an extremely invasive perennial grass that forms colonies along our highways and country roads. By invading the ditches, this plant, native to Eurasia, dislodged the cattail, which provided habitat and food for the cattail cryptophage in addition to serving as a nesting place for the least bittern (a wading bird with a vulnerable status). In contrast, the phragmites, which hosts 170 herbivores in its natural range, attracts no more than 5 varieties of insects here.
For Philippe Denis, this loss of biodiversity is notably linked to the pressure exerted by exotic species which have been introduced to North America. “The ornamental horticulture industry offers all kinds of plants in garden centers, some of which are highly invasive. Those that are not often have a purely aesthetic function. From an ecological point of view, they are practically garden gnomes! » he explains
Added to this is our way of occupying the territory. “We developed a built environment which eliminated the habitats of wild and native plants in favor of mineralized surfaces, monocultures and land covered with grass,” he notes.
Every balcony counts
Philippe Denis is delighted that we are starting to talk about the importance of wild and native plants for the preservation of wildlife biodiversity. After three years of developing his seeds, he is now increasing partnerships with other small businesses in order to vary his offering and offer seeds adapted to the different hardiness zones of Quebec, in particular.
“My goal is not to get bigger or produce everything on my own. I do not seek to cultivate in my soil what does not have the capacity to grow there naturally. The challenge, for me, is really to build production by setting up a network of pickers, farmers and landowners throughout Quebec,” he explains.
Currently, Akène offers a wide range of plants that can easily be integrated into gardens, balconies and patches of trees that line homes in the city’s neighborhoods. “I want to give a tool to people who want to have an impact on their scale. Every gesture counts. »
The Benefits of Wild and Native Plants
This content was produced by the Special Publications team at Duty, relating to marketing. The writing of the Duty did not take part.